A WOMEN’S football team from Middlesbrough got off to a losing start on foreign turf when they were thrashed on the pitch by their North Korean hosts.

Members of Middlesbrough Football Club Ladies FC are currently in the East Asian country as part of a cultural and friendship tour.

The trip, which saw 14 players and three coaching staff jet off last Thursday, has attracted national and international interest from newspapers, radio and news channels.

The team arrived in the capital Pyongyang on Saturday but on Sunday they were beaten 6-2 by North Korean women’s team, April 25 - according to media reports coming out of the country.

The match, which was the first of two to be played during the visit, marked the 10th anniversary of the opening of diplomatic relations between the communist North and Britain.

April 25 is the anniversary of the founding of the North’s military and Middlesbrough has celebrated a strong bond with the country since hosting North Korea at Ayresome Park during the 1966 World Cup, when they famously beat Italy.

Boro fans took the North Korean team to their hearts and followed their progression through to the quarter-finals at Everton’s Goodison Park.

The 1966 Korean squad paid an emotional return visit to Middlesbrough in October 2002.

MFC Ladies manager, Marrie Wieczorek, previously told the Gazette: “The trip is very much about friendship and is evidence of football’s power to break down cultural barriers.”

The team’s schedule included a reception at the British Embassy to meet surviving members of North Korea’s 1966 World Cup Squad.